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The Fall of Firebase Bravo - Part Two
Posted By: rachel docherty<bubbleraye@hotmail.com>
Date: 5 January 2008, 5:25 pm
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Barrett pushed his way through the thick foliage. The smell of the slimy mud festered in the air, so thick he almost choked. In places the mud was inches deep, and his boots sank into the filth, throwing him off balance. He shrugged the rifle further up his shoulder and grimaced as the pain in his leg beat through him.
He thought about all the men and women who had died protecting Firebase Bravo and rage bubbled in his blood. The UNSC had been unprepared for the sheer numbers of Covenant troops. He thought to himself that the damn ONI spooks could at least spot a Covenant battle force with their recon, but then again, he thought, the spooks were never on the frontlines. To them, him and all the marines just like him were a disposable commodity. As long as the Covenant never reached the inner systems, never found Reach, ONI were content to let hundreds of marines die.
A noise in the jungle up ahead snapped Barrett from his thoughts. He stopped abruptly and dropped low to the ground. The noise was horribly familiar. Grunts.
Barrett looked around him, his heart pounding. To his left, the ground started to slope sharply upward, and the top of this 'ledge' was covered in dense green ferns. Barrett gritted his teeth and sloshed through the mud unbearably slowly, trying not to make any sounds. The only fact which comforted the marine was that the Grunts didn't sound like they were getting any closer.
Barrett crawled his way up to the top of the slope, and started to slide forward on his belly, parting the ferns quietly with his fingertips. Below him, a rustling creek ran through a large depression. There were three Grunts that he could see, huddled around a battered looking Warthog. They chattered and squealed, hitting the jeep with the butts of their plasma pistols. As far as Barrett could see, the Grunts were pretty green, and didn't seem to have a superior officer hanging around them.
Barrett rested the sniper rifle on the ground and looked intently through the scope. Zooming in, he inspected the Warthog. The windshield was completely blown out, and there were plasma scorches all down her right hand side, but apart from that, the jeep looked intact. Barrett knew that if he could take out the three grunts quickly, he might make it to the jeep and be able to get on the com link. He scoped in on the nearest Grunt, watching it as it stared at the Warthog like an inquisitive animal. Holding his breath, Barrett squeezed the trigger. The rifle snapped backwards in recoil and the Grunt dropped silently to the ground. It took the other two Grunts a minute to realise what had happened to their comrade. A minute too long. Barrett popped the second Grunt's methane tank and it squealed hysterically before choking to death. The third Grunt starting firing wildly into the air, chattering and emitting high pitched squeaks. Barrett silenced it, the sniper round hitting it square in the chest. He counted himself lucky the things weren't well armoured.
Barrett reloaded the sniper rifle and raised himself up on his elbows. He couldn't see any more movement in the forest, and the only noise was the gentle rushing of the creek. He started to move down the harsh edge of the slope, lowering himself down slowly and using tree roots as handholds. Reaching the bottom, he took a second look around. He still couldn't see anything, and there were so many animals in the forest that he damn sure wouldn't hear anything. The Warthog was close now, and he hobbled faster, the mud sucking at his boots.
Barrett reached the abandoned jeep, and sank into the seat. He felt relief at just touching the familiar rough-edged metal of the jeep, something human in this stinking, menacing jungle. Barrett tried to start the jeep, the engine screaming in protest at being turned over. The Warthog sputtered and coughed, and died. Barrett kicked out in anger, catching his foot on the centre console.
'Dammit.'
He held his head in his hands and sat there. The wind died down completely, and a light rain shook the leaves overhead, but Barrett couldn't bring himself to move. Thoughts that he had been keeping at bay all day suddenly rushed into his head. He was going to die in this jungle.
Barrett didn't know how long it was before he slid out of the useless empty shell of the Warthog and started moving through the rain forest. The trees were closer together in this area of the jungle, and with the creek running through there was not much dry ground to walk on. Several times he slipped and his legs gave way underneath him. After dragging himself upright for a third time Barrett noticed the pain from the plasma burn on his leg had gotten a lot worse. The crawl up the muddy slope where he had taken out the three grunts had filled the cracks in his blistered skin with a brown, stinking filth, and after falling on to the riverbank, he could barely distinguish the mud from the wound. Barrett grimaced and decided he'd better stop to the clean the injury.
As midday passed, the humidity climbed and the thick jungle air became oppressive. As Barrett filled his bottle by the creek, with what he hoped was fairly clean water, he noticed huge footprints set deep into the thick mud. They were obviously from the huge aliens he had seen, small shrubs and plant life had been crushed into the dirt, and all around the huge depressions the creatures had left behind there were scores of Grunt tracks.
As he rinsed the worst of the mud from the cracked, sore skin on his leg and ripped the sleeve of his fatigues to make a makeshift bandage, he tried to ignore the fact that the tracks were heading in the same direction as him. Towards Firebase Alpha.
Barrett could smell the smoke before he saw the base. His heart sank in his chest as he lumbered slowly towards the dirt track which lead up the Alpha HQ. His arms and legs ached, and his chest felt like it was on fire. He had long ago given up trying to lug the sniper rifle, and he dragged it along the ground, its long barrel digging into the pliable dirt.
He pushed his way through to the dirt track and saw the preliminary defences of Firebase Alpha. The concrete bunker had been blasted away, and the ground was peppered with blast holes and Grunt tracks. Barrett felt dismay wash over him, but it couldn't quite extinguish the dim hope that someone up there might still be alive. Looking up, he squinted at the top of the hill. There was a signal flare, which meant there had to be marines.
Barrett picked up his speed, pushing past the pains in his leg. He passed the main barracks and the Command Office, both were burned to the ground. He kept going, his legs buckling underneath him, when he heard the all too familiar sound of a Pelican dropship overhead. Looking up, Barrett gazed in confusion at the singular dropship. It was heading for the centre of the base.
Up ahead, he could see a low granite bunker, surrounded by sandbags. There were marines outside. Only ten or so that he could see, but they looked as if they'd pushed the Covenant back. He started yelling and waving his arms, struggling to lift the heavy sniper rifle high over his head. Two of the marines standing and watching the dropship as it made to touch down saw him and jogged over. One of the marines had a bandage around his head and a patch covering one of his eyes.
'Jesus Private, you make it all the way from Bravo?'
Barrett nodded dumbly. Looking past the marine with the bandaged eye, he saw the dropship touch down. The launch ramp dropped into the scorched dirt of the base, and a dozen heavily armoured figures marched out, they looked as alien to him as any of the Covenant troops. Barrett stared at them wordlessly, the other marines turning to follow his gaze.
'Who in the hell are they?'
Barrett didn't know any better than the other marines, but he felt like something in this battle had changed. The tables were about to turn.
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